Page 336 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Genre: modern

wood. The absence of hair or hat (typical in such AR pieces of
older men) may also result from limitations of the material—
but less likely. AR did carve knob-heads (see the chess pieces
and the praying Moslem), but his intention is unclear in this
piece.

The figure is clearly aged, cold and in physical or mental
discomfort. e is not walking or looking outward, as is the case
in other pieces portraying a man with a cane. This subject is
wrapped up in himself, in his own grief and pain, dependent on
a stick for support. The carving thus combines several of AR’s
concerns—old age, patriarchal authority, and the virtue of
stoicism (in this case bearing unknown sorrows to the point of
losing independent motion). The question raised by these
characteristics is how to classify the piece: is it a non-specific or
“genre” representation or does it lie somewhere on a
dimension of unlabeled personal history (as many of his pieces
clearly do)? It may be that AR preferred the anonymity of such
carvings to any other means of expressing his deepest feelings.

2 Man comforting a child
Wood
13” x 4”

In this tableau the characters are unquestionably modern.
The man is beardless, wears a European overcoat and fedora
and sits in the barrel-back armchair (which is unfinished, pencil
lines outlining uncarved detail—a rarity in AR’s work). His
brow is furrowed and one hand rests on a cane, suggesting old
age. He stares forward rigidly, while his other hand rests on the
back of the neck of a young girl in a sailor dress leaning against
his leg; her arms are folded on his knee and she appears to be
crying. A similar theme is seen in no. 70, and no. 143 should be
considered a related work. In this respect, no. 2 may be another
portrayal of discomforted comforting, a situation of great
emotional staying power in the artist’s psyche. Could the man
be AR himself, and the child one of his daughters? A
photograph shows a fairly exact model in clay of this work,
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